The boys like peanut butter and they like chocolate, but the peanut butter cups from the store are too sweet and too salty. Moreover, we like bittersweet chocolate, so we decided to make our own. After all, I had a bunch of mini muffin cups I’d picked up in the post-Christmas sale at IKEA.

This is a project the kids can help with: mine not only helped fill the cups, they were wholly responsible for the decorations.

Ingredients:

1 cup creamy peanut butter, separated into two equal parts *

1 1/2 tbsp. butter

1 tsp. honey

One bag (about 2 cups) dark chocolate chips

Some extra semi-sweet chips (to make a generous 2 cups of chips)

Roughly 4 oz. of milk chocolate (this I might remove from the recipe next time)

Decorations

Mini muffin cups (sized to suit)

* To be sure, one could substitute soy butter, sunflower butter, or something similar for those cases where peanut butter is unwelcome.

Method:

In a double boiler,* combine chocolate and about half of the peanut butter

Stir the chocolate peanut butter mixture until smooth

In a separate bowl, combine 1/2 cup peanut butter, honey, and butter

Mix until smooth (I put the bowl over the double boiler for a few minutes to speed up the process)

Using a teaspoon, drip the melted chocolate into the bottom of the muffin cups until just covered.

At the end of this step, I rolled the cups around just enough to bring the chocolate up the sides, but this is not necessary

Carefully put a small dab of the peanut butter mixture in the middle of each muffin cup. Be careful not to let the peanut butter touch the sides!